Enthusiasm for iBooks Author marred by licensing, format issues

Educators so far seem excited about the potential promise of a learning "revolution" enabled by Apple's new iBooks Author app. However, not everyone is feeling that same level of enthusiasm: e-book publishing experts have concerns about the formatting that iBooks Author can output, which isn't fully ePub 2 or ePub 3 compliant. Furthermore, Apple has added a clause to iBooks Author's end user license agreement that prohibits selling e-books created with iBooks Author anywhere but the iBookstore.

iBooks created by iBooks Author use ePub 2 along with certain HTML5 and JavaScript-based extensions that Apple uses to enable multimedia and interactive features. Those interactive features will only work with Apple's iBooks app, not with other e-reader software or hardware, because only Apple supports those extensions.

Still, there shouldn't be any technical limitation to exporting a strictly ePub 2-compliant ePub document if none of the interactive features are used. Unfortunately, iBooks Author only exports PDFs and text.

"It's disappointing that iBooks Author is such a good tool, but you can't just export to standard ePub," user experience expert Nick Disabato told Ars. Last year, Disabato self-published a treatise on user interaction design called Cadence & Slang. He has since been working on translating the original book created in InDesign into standard ePub format.

"InDesign can export to ePub, but it's not perfect," Disabato said. "Fortunately for me, I can go in and tweak the code by hand." But not every author is so technically inclined.

"ePub 3 covers most of the interaction stuff in iBooks. It's a little disappointing that Apple hasn't adopted it yet. There's not a single e-reader that supports it yet, and Apple could have really accelerated adoption of the standard," said Disabato.

"Audacious" licensing restriction

Beyond the format issues is a particularly troubling clause in the iBooks Author EULA. E-books made with iBooks Author can be given away for free wherever and however an author wants. But e-books offered for sale can only be distributed via the iBookstore, and nowhere else:

If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.

"They could have made an amazing tool, and encouraged people to create their own content," HTML and ePub expert Liz Castro told Ars. "[Apple is] being greedy."

At first blush, the restriction seems implausible. "I was baffled at that restriction—I am not a lawyer, but that seems like overreaching on that," Disabato added. "It's not a good impression."

However, we consulted technology and IP attorney Evan Brown to understand whether this is truly as crazy as it seems. "The notion of placing a 'condition' on the use of software is at the heart of software and content licensing," Brown explained.

"The offending language in the iBooks Author EULA is a condition on the use of the software, sort of disguised as a condition on the use of the books that are created," Brown said. "Imagining how this might play out in a dispute reveals the nuance. Say a user makes her iBooks Author created work available for sale through some non-Apple platform. Would Apple sue, claiming that that book is infringing? Of course not—it would lose that lawsuit big time. Instead, Apple would claim that the use of iBooks Author to create that work violated this condition of the EULA, thus was beyond the scope of the EULA, and thus was infringement. Any lawsuit would be for infringement of the software, not of the book."

Of course, an argument could be made that iBooks Author is free software, and made by Apple specifically for iBooks. "If Apple ties Pearson and others to the iBookstore so that teachers can have iBooks Author for free, I think I'm OK with that." Fraser Speirs, head of information technology for Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland, said via Twitter.

Disabato seemed to cautiously agree. "iBooks Author can definitely benefit independent authors, empower them, and bring additional democratization to publishing, but there's a trade-off there. I'm willing to accept the limitations in the short term to get publishers on board, but I hope Apple moves forward on this," he said.

However, not everyone will be willing to accept that compromise. "I bridle at anyone telling me where I can sell my books," Castro wrote on her blog. "Even if I only wanted to sell through the iBookstore I would be annoyed at Apple making me sign a paper to that effect."

The limitations might be even worse than some suspect, too. A source who asked not to be identified told Ars that the iTunes Connect contract required to distribute content via the iBookstore contains a clause (section 3a) that states, in effect, that if you sell some of your content on the iBookstore, you have to sell all of your content on the iBookstore. The full implications aren't clear, but it seems to suggest that if you have e-Book titles available elsewhere, Apple could have the right to also sell those titles.

Troubling licensing terms have ruffled the feathers of developers and publishers in the past, though Apple largely backed away from the most worrisome issues. It's possible that the backlash against these licensing terms could result in a similar outcome.

But, as Evans told Ars, the likelihood of Apple ever filing such a lawsuit is pretty slim. "I think it's about as likely as Jimmy Wales and Lamar Smith taking a Mediterranean cruise together."

(Regardless, we suspect many would-be authors and self-publishers may not like the specter of Apple's legal team floating over their heads.)

Who will give e-book power to the people?

iBooks Author is still a 1.0 product—for instance, it only has six templates total, and all of them are designed for textbooks—so the formatting issues could be resolved in a future version. The iBooks Author licensing could also change in the short term, as well. We contacted Apple to clarify their position on the licensing, but got no response.

If iBooks Author isn't quite the "GarageBand for e-books" we had hoped for, however, it may be just the impetus for other software developers to fill the void with a cross-platform tool that creates standard ePub files that work across several distribution platforms.

"The parameters for ePub are known, so I don't know what's stopping others from creating something as good as iBooks Author for Windows or Linux," Disabato said. "That market it wide open. If developers can find a way to export to different platforms at once, it'll be really great."

...the thing Apple calls a book or a Work is the completed, formatted file that is generated by iBooks Author. That’s the thing you can only sell through the iBookStore.

But: the text remains yours. The unformatted raw text that you slaved over in Word or Scrivener or BBEdit or whatever you use to write in – that text is yours to reformat in another application, resulting in a file of a different format, which you’re free to sell elsewhere if you wish.

In order to succeed, they'll have to open it up to free exporting to epub 3. The US educational system is far too cash-strapped to ever be locked into Apple. As long as the software remains locked into Apple's ecosystem it will be strictly accessible by the rich.

You're distributing content that you're selling in the iBookstore outside of the iBookstore? You're out of the iBookstore, no litigation required. Dump your other outlets and ask us nicely, and we'll let you back in.

The thing that gets me is that even with the "Elementary Algebra" template, there seems to be no capability of adding even simple maths to the textbook. Right now I am experimenting with copying pdf page images made in LaTeX. Not ideal.

Afterthought: Since I need to write the text in LaTeX first, it does seem I have a backdoor out of the EULA. ;-)

How is this different then signing a contract with a publisher? You're not going to be able to have Bantam and Harper both publish your book at the same time. A better clause would be an exclusivity one only if the book is available on iBookstore, not if it was created with the tool. Thus it would mirror the current sales restrictive model, not switch to a creation restrictive model.

Those who are nervous about Apple laying an exclusive claim to sales of their work can still generate epub files with other software and sell it in Apple's store.

A nice middle ground would be if iBooks Author could import epub files. Then authors could create a standard epub book which they can sell anywhere and an augmented iBooks version for Apple's store only.

...the thing Apple calls a book or a Work is the completed, formatted file that is generated by iBooks Author. That’s the thing you can only sell through the iBookStore.

But: the text remains yours. The unformatted raw text that you slaved over in Word or Scrivener or BBEdit or whatever you use to write in – that text is yours to reformat in another application, resulting in a file of a different format, which you’re free to sell elsewhere if you wish.

Without this restriction, there would inevitably be some "competitor" who would make a device that could read the iBooks Author format. They then sell that device at a lower cost than the iPad, thus piggybacking on Apple's R&D and chopping them off at the knees. This restriction is simply Apple teling would-be competitors that they will need to recreate the whole system(authoring software, store, device, etc), instead of just making the consumption device.

How is this different then signing a contract with a publisher? You're not going to be able to have Bantam and Harper both publish your book at the same time. A better clause would be an exclusivity one only if the book is available on iBookstore, not if it was created with the tool. Thus it would mirror the current sales restrictive model, not switch to a creation restrictive model.

I think as long as you don't use the software, then there isn't an issue. Now, if Apple says, hey, you can only use THIS SOFTWARE, we won't allow other "apps" to be used on our devices, then that's a problem. But that's not the case here.

So, let's see:

1. Don't use this software if you don't like the licensing agreement.2. If you're forced to use this software on the device, then rethink your personal purchasing habits.

E-book publishing experts have concerns about the formatting that iBooks Author can output, which isn't fully ePub 2 or ePub 3 compliant.

That sounds remarkably similar to Apple's pre-boot enviroment on its Macs. A hybrid BIOS/EFI (which itself is a hybrid of EFI 1 and UEFI 2 features) mobo firmware, which mandates the use of Apple's self-created hybrid GUID / MBR partition tables if you want to boot more than one OS. Dare use any partitioning utility besides Apple's own diskutil, and all of a sudden you lose the ability to boot any non-OS X OS from your computer.

All of this is undocumented, of course.

I used to be more of an Apple fan, but the proprietary BS they pull to inhibit interoperability gets really old really fast.

Sure, Apple can place these restrictions. It may even be justifiable that Apple is placing these restrictions in exchange for providing a free too. Whether they should have, is a separate question.

Some people thinks this makes Apple seem greedy. I just think it makes them look small, and petty.1) Anyone using this tool has already paid Apple for a Mac.2) Apple is the only one, right now, who has a device that can even display these things, that could change, but3) Apple has the best device for displaying these (at least until Amazon releases a larger Kindle fire)4) Apple has the best commerce solution for selling these things to owners of their devices

Even with the restriction, Apple could have positioned this differently, something to the effect of: You can use this software to produce freely distributable ebooks. If you really, really, insist on selling the books your produce, commercial distribution is limited to the iBookstore.

Without this restriction, there would inevitably be some "competitor" who would make a device that could read the iBooks Author format. They then sell that device at a lower cost than the iPad, thus piggybacking on Apple's R&D and chopping them off at the knees. This restriction is simply Apple teling would-be competitors that they will need to recreate the whole system(authoring software, store, device, etc), instead of just making the consumption device.

An excellent analysis. Of course, the downside for publishers is the smaller market if they go all-in and really embace Apple's format. For someone writing interactive ebooks today, the logic is probably "well, iPad has all the market share, I might as well do that".

You have to think that Amazon is positively scrambling to offer feature-for-feature capabilities on Kindle and Fire (and will open license the format since they don't have the same business model that Apple does).

1. Charge for the authoring software, and allow people to distribute their output by whatever means they wish.

2. Make the authoring software freely available, but limit its commercial output to approved distribution channels.

Apple obviously chose option 2. I see no problem with this.

There are ways in which they could benefit from this without sacrificing portability. If they make the best authoring tools, have the best ereader, and have the best 'book store', then people will buy Macs, iPads, and ebooks from Apple for the best ecosystem for authors and readers. Yes, Amazon may be able to make use of their tool, but it could position iBooks Author to clearly become the standard publishing tool, which is probably a more important battle.

They could have sold this to everyone at a relative low cost and allowed other distribution channels. I think it is up to these large tech companies and their iconic images to move the country/world forward as well as make lots of money.

"The offending language in the iBooks Author EULA is a condition on the use of the software, sort of disguised as a condition on the use of the books that are created," Brown said. "Imagining how this might play out in a dispute reveals the nuance. Say a user makes her iBooks Author created work available for sale through some non-Apple platform. Would Apple sue, claiming that that book is infringing? Of course not—it would lose that lawsuit big time. Instead, Apple would claim that the use of iBooks Author to create that work violated this condition of the EULA, thus was beyond the scope of the EULA, and thus was infringement. Any lawsuit would be for infringement of the software, not of the book."

It's a distinction without a difference, the end result is the same: if you use Author to create a work that you sell through another store, you're liable to get sued. The fact that Apple is claiming ownership over how the software is used doesn't distinguish from the fact that Apple is effectively taking ownership of the output of the software. They just chose a (possibly) legally defensible and backhanded way to to do it, that's all.

...the thing Apple calls a book or a Work is the completed, formatted file that is generated by iBooks Author. That’s the thing you can only sell through the iBookStore.

But: the text remains yours. The unformatted raw text that you slaved over in Word or Scrivener or BBEdit or whatever you use to write in – that text is yours to reformat in another application, resulting in a file of a different format, which you’re free to sell elsewhere if you wish.

Yeah... because people like to maintain two independent versions of the same book. You have to do all the markup/interactive one format, then another, and then keep them sync'd etc. Anyone who has *ever* attempted anything like this knows what a pile of crap that is. Only someone completely ignorant of what it takes to do that type of work would even begin to think that it is easy to do that. Software developers face that kind of thing all the time. Many put a layer that sits between the content and either type of output and just 'recompile' the code with the appropriate target. However, Apple has clearly demonstrated in the past that it doesn't like people doing that (look at the developer junk that happened a while back).

Without this restriction, there would inevitably be some "competitor" who would make a device that could read the iBooks Author format. They then sell that device at a lower cost than the iPad, thus piggybacking on Apple's R&D and chopping them off at the knees. This restriction is simply Apple teling would-be competitors that they will need to recreate the whole system(authoring software, store, device, etc), instead of just making the consumption device.

An excellent analysis. Of course, the downside for publishers is the smaller market if they go all-in and really embace Apple's format. For someone writing interactive ebooks today, the logic is probably "well, iPad has all the market share, I might as well do that".

You have to think that Amazon is positively scrambling to offer feature-for-feature capabilities on Kindle and Fire (and will open license the format since they don't have the same business model that Apple does).

Excellent point about licensing. There is nothing stopping Apple from licensing the iBooks Author format to Amazon, Samsung, et al. and lifting the restriction. This is where Apple's total user experience comes into play. I'm certain they believe that no one else can match the experience of the iPad (smoothness, fluidity, etc.), and right now I'd have to agree with that.

I can't see school systems jumping into the Apple ecosystem with both feet considering Apple has demonstrated repeatedly that they have no problems leaving their customers high and dry by dropping support or products with no warning.

If this ever creates a de facto monopoly then I fully expect to the government to piss in their conflakes. Until that happens then I've got no real beef with Apple's proprietary tools making proprietary output.

It is incumbent upon our schools to choose the most open cost-effective systems. I have less problem with Apple trying this approach than with any school administrator who agrees to lock in their content with Apple.

Please name one company that would allow their FREE tools to be used to help people publish to their competitors?

Well... "publish" is a fairly restrictive word, but I can use the FREE Visual Studio Express (made and released by Microsoft) to develop software that then compiles using Mono on other, competing platforms.

On a related note, I am outraged that Etsy's excellent tools for putting together storefronts and listings don't allow me to export that work to EBay.

That isn't so much the issue - it's apple carrying over those same restrictions to universities and the public school system. We already went through a debacle with MS and their tie ins, and we don't need a repeat of history.

It's also quite lame that people would be very willing to pay $$$ for the tool to make the books instead of perpetual profit to apple via their store. The initial cost of the program would be much less than the typical cut to apple generated on a best seller book.

Creating a file of your book with this software means you must sell your book only through Apple, even if you use another tool to create a version of the book to be sold elsewhere? That wouldn't be legal. Indy authors are free to sell their books simultaneously anywhere they want. For example you can sell your ebook at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords all at once. Now if it is just saying that the particular file created by the Apple software can only be sold through Apple, I could see how that might hold up in court...

The clause about how selling even one of your books through Apple/iTunes means you have to sell all your books by this method is completely ridiculous and I don't see how it would hold up in court but the burden on an indy author to fight Apple would be prohibitive, so

I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole! I feel sorry for the poor suckers who fall for this.

What makes all of this a complete non-starter for me is that you can only read these ebooks on iPads. Even though you run the same iBooks executable on the iPhone they won't work there, and there's no way to read the books on a computer, either. Is Apple seriously thinking that teachers will work on their lessons with a computer and an iPad next to each other on their desks?

What makes all of this a complete non-starter for me is that you can only read these ebooks on iPads. Even though you run the same iBooks executable on the iPhone they won't work there, and there's no way to read the books on a computer, either. Is Apple seriously thinking that teachers will work on their lessons with a computer and an iPad next to each other on their desks?